Beastars, a Review of an Up and Coming Meme

Nov 19, 2019
• by lonelylich

Beastars, a step removed from Zootopia with a massive dollop of twisted and dark, is a Japanese manga that has won multiple awards. This up and coming holy grail of twisted memes for the nerd community is going to get even more attention now since the anime is being made. Currently only five episodes were released in Japan. Looking past that this series, running since September 2016, is strikingly very similar to Zootopia’s world, which was released in March of 2016, here is my analysis of the series by itself.

Even if I was given context with this, I'm not sure if that would help.

There are now memes that poke fun that this manga will turn people into furries. I was reluctant to read the manga to see for myself that it could in fact it could turn people into a furry, mainly because it is 151 chapters and after seeing some of the manga’s panels floating around…

The reluctance to corrupt myself is overwhelmed by morbid curiosity eventually.

The reluctance to corrupt myself is overwhelmed by morbid curiosity eventually.

…I at least watched the anime and began to read a lot of the manga. Yes, I’ve begun to read the manga to get more context around this image.

This is a panel from the very first chapter, when we know almost nothing about who the eerie and creepy hand behind the tree belongs to. This is the main character, Lugosi, who is later portrayed kind of like a redeemed and virtuous carnivore, who is misunderstood because he is a carnivore that looks intimidating. After he speaks with one of the female sheep characters alone, he gives her a letter of her admirer who would never could give it to her anymore. Her view on him completely changes, and she even regrets saying not so great things about him. Lugosi represents someone born with hardships that makes society fear and hate him. We are meant to feel sorry for this character that cannot help his situation.

Boo Hoo.

I even felt sorry for him, that is until, the authors decided to have his romantic interest be a white dwarf bunny named Haru that is less than half his size, seemingly infantile looking. While turning this story into a romance or smut. Slowly as the series delves into darker things, the dynamic started to draw similarities to other sorts of predators. Lugosi is essentially re-skinning and romanticizing the "virtuous predator".